Determining the target position is based on careful analysis of the current situation (Kapferer 2012, 151) and it consists of three steps: creation of the options, comparison and testing and evaluation of the position (Pulkkinen 2003, 133). When choosing the target position, company needs to identify carefully what it wants to achieve, how it wants the customers to see the company and what it wants and can promise. It is also needed to taking into account if the target position is based on the interests of the company and strengths or the customer’s point of view. An important issue to consider is also if the driver of positioning would be based on rational (costs), functional (attributes of the product) or emotional (images) factors (Low & Lamp Jr 2000, 351–
353; Fuchs & Diamantopoulos, 2010, 1770).
The target position is formed on the basis of the analysis of the current situation. The choosing process contains three steps: creation of the options, comparison and testing and evaluation of the position. According to Kapferer (2012, 152) it is important to create multiple positioning options. A process of choosing the right and most favorable position is a process of trying, adding and deleting.
Company can identify itself through almost infinite associations. In literature, there are several positioning bases discussed from the tangible to intangible ones. The traditional aspect has taken a tangible attribute, like a shape, as a driver but lately more intangible ones, like sustainability, responsibility or eco-friendliness, have become more popular.
Today companies rely their brands to different kind of images. There is not one and only, the best, positioning strategy. Every company needs to understand its own situation and the environment and make own decisions in its’ own context. In every
business field environment is continuously changing, which means that the company needs to observe the situation and question its competence and drivers all the time.
There are many kind of positioning strategies, which can be found from the literature.
These strategies can be used as an assist in creating positioning options (Pulkkinen 2003, 123). The strategies vary by a writer. Two quite comprehensive ones are the lists made by Temporal (2006, 100–102) and Fuchs & Diamantopoulos (2010, 1767) and these two are presented here.
One of the most traditional bases for positioning is some feature or characteristic, which represents the company and its products in the best possible way. The company highlights the concrete attributes of the brand in order to create a differential advantage.
The concrete attributes are characteristics of the brand advantage; they are objectively measurable, mostly tangible and typically “search features”;; they are also specific to the product category (Fuchs & Diamantopoulos 2010, 1766–1767). Selected features should be the ones that make the brand better or different than its competitors. This strategy is clear and logical (Temporal 2006, 97–114). The feature does not need to be a concrete product feature but it can also be something abstract like safety, eco-friendliness or reliability. One remarkable weakness of this strategy is that competitors easily copy it and features that would be really different are hard to find and remain. For example, sustainability is a feature which does not have one and only definition, so it is hard to define and in addition some people are relating sustainability as green-washing, which can be negatively associated and in that way it can exclude some part of the target group (Kotler et al. 2012, 188).
When changing the strategy to more customer-oriented, one base of the strategy can be the benefit, which tells how the customer benefits from the brand. This strategy helps company to understand customers’ preferences, needs and wants better and target its messages to the customer more accurately. Understanding the benefits, which customers are seeking, is not enough as the benefits should be unique and different than the competitors are offering (Kotler et al. 2012, 472). The benefits can be divided to direct and indirect ones (Fuchs & Diamantopoulos 2010, 1770). Direct benefits communicate advantages of (the usage of) a brand. Direct benefits are not directly observable as benefits are always experienced and perceived by the customers and different customers
can value and find different kind of benefits from the same brand. Direct benefits are based on the personal values that consumers assign to the product or service features and they are related to the question whether the brand works as intended. The other types of benefits are indirect benefits, which are about the benefits that satisfy hedonic and experiential needs. Indirect benefits give customers an indirect advantage of the consumption of the product, for example status or self-confidence. Indirect benefits are playing a crucial role with the brands which products have hedonic, expressive or symbolic function.
Nowadays a nice feature of the product is not enough to deliver great value for the customer but the focus should be shifted to providing the solutions to solve the customers’ problems. The ability to solve problems is a commonly used strategy, also in industrial markets. The company has really to be committed and able to solve the customers’ problems. It has to be reliable and customer-oriented. If this is realized, this strategy is very effective. The problem is that there can be just one problem solver in the market. Company has to be sure of that no any other competitor can offer the same solutions, so innovativeness is needed. For example technology business is a tough field to differentiate with the problem solving as the solutions for the customers can be quite similar. The positioning strategy can also be a combination of many and this strategy is one, which requires some fixing from some other (Upshaw 1995, 135–145).
Another truth is that there can be just one leader in a market. Positioning as a leader is effective but a position, which is hard to achieve. It is not enough that there is a imagination about being a leader in a company but it should be also in the minds of customers. Leadership can be based on expertise, behavior or authority. The position is usually communicated by superlatives: most innovative, most reliable or safest.
Positioning against the competitors is a strategy where competitors’ weaknesses are identified and one’s brand is tried to position in a better way through communications:
“we are more..”, “we are better..”. The competition-driven strategy can be found aggressive, as it requires attitude, courage and skills. There has to be an ability to be respectful and fair as this strategy makes company easily rude and arrogant in the eyes of stakeholders. There are quite tight restrictions in many countries’ legislation, which
limits companies’ possibilities to compare it to the competitors (Laakso 2004, 148–177;
Upshaw 1995, 135–145).
Many companies are also positioning their selves under the corporate brand. This strategy can be cost-effective but the company needs to be careful and keep the product brands, which are brought under the corporate brand in the line, otherwise the whole package can become really confusing.
Positioning can also be based on the type of use. The brand can be differentiated by stressing the situations, time or ways of using the brand. The emphasis should not be too strong as there is a danger to jam the associations of the brand just to one kind of situation or way to use.
More abstract base for the positioning strategy are for example positioning through dream images; what people would like to be or where they would like to go, what are they dreaming about or positioning by convictions like Benetton has done when communicating more about human rights and equality than its concrete products (Temporal 2006, 104–105).
Values or images can also be an effective basis for brand positioning. The company can position its brand for example through perceived price-quality ratio or more abstract values like emotional ones or when thinking what is wrong, what is right. Positioning strategy, which focuses on values, can be strong and have a great impact to the individual customer’s choices and thoughts. On the other hand company can try to create consumer associations about external aspects of the brand, which are communicating about the values and visions of the company. These can be for example sustainability (green values), effectiveness (producing a lot but fast) or economy (best value for the money). However, value based positioning has been more popular within the consumer goods (Upshaw 1995, 135–145) but lately it has earned more attention also in B2B sector where competition is getting tighter and traditional attribute or benefit based strategies are not strong enough anymore.
Positioning based on personality is based on brand personality (Temporal 2006, 110).
First the brand personality is defined then it is communicated to the stakeholders to gain
specific image in the minds of the customers. The brand personality is often described by different kind of adjectives, which are representing the brand. The brand can for example be green, innovative, adventurous or traditional. If the company succeeds to create unique personality, it is hard for competitors to copy. In this positioning strategy it is not enough to find out how personality is defined within the company but it has to be also cleared how stakeholders are seeing and experiencing the brand.
In many cases brand positioning strategy, which is selected, can be a combination of many strategies (Figure 3). The organization needs to be able to distinguish the best suitable and effective strategies to its specific situation. Strategies offer different kind of possibilities to build brand positions. The strategy needs to be suitable to the business field and creativity is recommended: not many brands can succeed with the same strategy and brand driver in the same industry.
Figure 3 Elements of brand positioning Reference Temporal, P. 2006.
When different kind of positioning strategies are identified, compared and tested, it is time to choose the most potential one of which the “best” one is selected. The basis for the position strategy should be selected carefully and once it is done it should be the ground for the whole positioning process from communications to every-day-life.